In the nights
by SaoriK
Summary: In the night there is despair, but there is also hope. [One-shot] [X-posted Ao3]


Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroko no Basket

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When night comes, Akashi sleeps. Most of the time it's just that — he closes his eyes and thinks of nothing. In his mind there is only white and everything is blank and when he wakes up there is nothing to remember.

Sometimes it's not like this and he wakes up sweating, cold and afraid. His heart beating so fast and so strongly, it seems like it will burst (and little part of him thinks it wouldn't be that bad if it did.)

Those nights he has nightmares — the fears and anxieties he keeps locked down during the day resurfacing when he is alone with his thoughts. Akashi sees his father, bigger than ever, towering him with cold eyes; his voice is hard and strict, but his words are worse and they cut the little hopes Akashi has and they weight in his mind. There is no setting, only his father and a never ending blackness that makes him feel smaller than anything, that makes him think he still is the same kid standing in front of his mother coffin.

He also remembers the day his mother died and there is a hollow feeling in those nights. He is helpless, he can't cry or mourn and he thinks a part of him died together with her.

Akashi sees Teiko and there are so many feelings that he tosses around in his bed and in the morning he is tired and a mess. Guilty, fear, hate, sadness — it hurts so much and he hates himself during those times. It's a mess in his mind. There is Murasakibara defying him and his almost victory; Aomine skipping practices with a bored look; Kuroko helplessly chasing after them, trying to fix everything; Nijimura-san retiring and leaving them, so sure that everything would be okay when nothing was okay. There was so much in Teiko and so much he regretted. (Kuroko's resignation letter still sits in his drawer, little tears drops marking the paper.)

He also remembers his loss at the Winter Cup and he resents Kuroko a little bit. His first loss and so public announced. A taint in the Akashi name. He feels a thousand eyes on him and he wishes to disappear, not to have showed this shameful side of him.

Akashi's nightmares shows him the worst in him and in the world, what he did wrong and who he wronged. They remember him of how little he deserves.

But in the rare nights, Akashi dreams, and he hopes.

He dreams of when mother was alive, teaching him basketball, cheering for him. He feels her warmth and soothing touches, he hears her soft voice and lullabies. And the world is not that bad anymore.

Teiko comes as an escape; a little freedom. Teiko comes as a family he found in the Miracles and Nijimura, people he could care for and know that they cared back. In his mind he sees a court and they are playing and having fun and there is no need to win nor an audience to please. Sometimes they are at the convenience store eating popsicle like normal middle-schoolers.

It's a dream full of smiles and loud voices and rough, but well-meaning touches.

And then there is Rakuzan, a team he claimed for nothing but victory in mind, that turned in another family, even when he did not wish for it. Much more sarcasm and fights, but a common goal that tied them together. They still are learning how to make it work, but there is laugh and happiness.

There is a dream that brings tears to his eyes and when he wakes up he is relaxed and even if the world is cruel, he feels hopes blooming in his chest.

It's a very specific dream. It's his lost at Winter Cup. It's coming back and giving his all. It's feeling the adrenaline rush and focusing only in the game and nothing else — not the audience, not the prospect of the result of losing. Nothing.

Akashi feels his tears running down his face like at the end of the game and between the frustration and sadness of losing, there is gratitude. He feels Kuroko's hands in his and he remembers the smile in his usually stoic face. He hears his promise of new games and the unsaid promise of reconciliation, of restoring what they once lost.

When the dream ends, Akashi knows he wronged many people and forgiveness doesn't come easily, but Akashi knows he can be better little by little. He knows he is not alone.

In the night there is despair, but there is also hope.


End file.
